Youth Training Programs and Their Impact on Career and Spell Duration of Professional Soccer Players

Abstract

A unique data set of post‐war English trained soccer players is used to study the impact of the youth training program they attended on their career and spell duration. Duration models in the spirit of Abbring and van den Berg are employed to estimate local treatment effects of different training programs on players — survival in the top European leagues. The results indicate that the duration patterns of players are dependent on the youth academy they attended. Certain clubs, with a well‐established reputation in developing youth talent, outperform others in terms of producing and evaluating the ability of their youth players to succeed in top European leagues. The spell analysis outlines the nature of the competitive environment in which smaller clubs have a chance to keep up with the larger ones in terms of producing and holding on to homegrown talent. Finally, the results of both analyses addressed unobserved heterogeneity, allowed for nonlinearity of covariates using the cubic spline methodology, and were tested for endogeneity bias using a split sample test.

Labor Market Implications of Institutional Changes in European Football

“…26. Frick, Pietzner, and Prinz (2007) as well as Radoman and Voia (2015) show that career duration of goaltenders is longer than for other positions considered, and forwards tend to have the shortest career duration. 27.…”

Three Essays on the Labour Market Implications of Youth Training Programs and Institutional Changes in Professional Sports

“…Arsenal has a history (particularly in the last 15-20 years) of producing and maintaining quality players from their youth program in their firs team, and they seem to be one of the most competitive and financiall stable clubs in England in the recent era. 42 On the other hand, a club like Everton, that has the longest history of appearances in the top tier of English soccer, seems to be on the low end of the statistically significan youth team regressors for this analysis, but the career duration of its youth trainees is in the upper third of the clubs examined. This suggests that they haven't been able or willing to hold on to their youth products for a sufficientl long period of time compared to some of the other teams in the analysis.…”

“…Better ranked, or financiall superior, clubs had a higher probability of selecting foreign players, which speaks to their ability to re-allocate their internal resources more efficientl towards foreign-player scouting than smaller (lower-ranked) clubs when accounting for the Bosman ruling. 114 For specifi detail on the tests mentioned in this section, please refer to Radoman and Voia (2015).…”

“…Naturally, it is much more difficul for youth trainees to establish themselves at larger clubs like Manchester United due to the more competitive firs team environment. Smaller 42 The current Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, has developed a strong youth program at the club and has emphasized relying on home grown talent versus active purchasing in the transfer market. In fact, Arsenal were one of the few English clubs in recent years to report profit instead of losses.…”

“…This difference would be even greater if Man U was included in the more reputable group (Youthrank = 1). 109 For a detailed description of possible models that could be employed and all of the statistical tests mentioned in this subsection, please refer toRadoman and Voia (2015).…”